Qualtrics Announces $6.75 Billion Acquisition of Press Ganey Forsta
With this acquisition, Qualtrics bets that healthcare is the hardest — and best — AI proving ground.
According to Qualtrics, the transaction is being funded with a mix of cash and equity, backed by debt commitments from a syndicate of global banks including BMO, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, KKR Capital Markets, Mizuho, Morgan Stanley, RBC, UBS, and Wells Fargo.
The deal is expected to close “in the coming months,” pending regulatory approvals.
Going Big Again
Although Qualtrics may have been born in a Provo basement, it’s now playing on the world’s largest enterprise stage.
Since going private in June 2023 under Silver Lake and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), the company has quietly rebuilt itself to act like a software giant, not a SaaS vendor.
This deal proves it.
To be clear, Press Ganey isn’t just another survey firm.
It’s the de facto standard for patient-experience and healthcare benchmarking, trusted by more than 41,000 providers across 30 countries.
It lives inside the compliance machinery of hospitals, regulators, and insurers.
And with the Press Ganey purchase, Qualtrics builds an AI-empowered moat to protect it, both in healthcare and beyond.
“Bringing together Press Ganey Forsta’s expertise with Qualtrics' experience management and AI capabilities will enable organizations to act on feedback and data in ways that improve lives.”
— Zig Serafin, CEO of Qualtrics
That’s marketing language, sure. But it’s also strategy language.
Why Healthcare? Why Now?
If you didn't know, artificial intelligence systems are hungry for trusted, domain-grade data.
Healthcare has that data, but it also has guardrails, regulators, and patient-privacy laws that make it a nightmare for generic AI tools.
That’s exactly why this acquisition makes sense.
Press Ganey already holds the rights, relationships, and reporting frameworks that let experience data flow safely.
By combining those with Qualtrics AI agents — like Conversational Feedback, Qualtrics Assist, and Experience Agents — Qualtrics can now deploy compliant, action-oriented AI across hospitals without breaking any rules.
It’s a massive credibility jump.
Deal Anatomy in a Nutshell
🔹 Price: $6.75 billion (enterprise value).
🔹 Structure: Cash + equity.
🔹 Financing: Debt from 11 banks.
🔹 Sellers: Ares Management and Leonard Green & Partners (LGP), who acquired Press Ganey in 2019 and added Forsta in 2022 [3].
🔹 Qualtrics Advisers:Goodwin Procter (M&A), Simpson Thacher (debt), MSD Partners, Centerview Partners and BDT;
🔹 Press Ganey Forsta Advisers: Latham & Watkins, Barclays and Moelis;
Yes — that’s a full-court financial press.
Local Impact and Signal
For Utah, this deal matters more than any software headline you’ll read this week.
It cements Qualtrics as Utah’s first global AI operator, not just another enterprise platform.
As Intermountain Health CEO Rob Allen said:
“Better patient and employee experiences lead to better outcomes.” [1]
That’s not just a soundbite. It's a Use Case.
Expect Intermountain Health and other healthcare systems to become early adopters and beta partners for the Qualtrics / Press Ganey combined platform.
That means more local hiring in data governance, AI, analytics, and compliance.
And it positions Utah as an early laboratory for regulated-AI deployment.
To be clear, this is a vertical integration bet.
AI + regulated data + operational workflow = a new moat.
For years, enterprise CX vendors have fought over dashboards and UX.
This move shifts the fight into operations — where outcomes are measured in patient safety, staff retention, and readmission rates, not survey response times.
It’s the difference between analytics and action.
What Happens Next?
Obviously, nothing changes overnight, especially since there may be regulatory oversight / approval before the deal closes.
Healthcare data integration happens under contract, with lawyers in every room.
Expect “connectors,” not “mergers,” in the short term.
But the real shift will come as Qualtrics starts embedding Press Ganey’s benchmarks into its broader platform, using AI to close feedback loops automatically.
Imagine a hospital administrator seeing real-time staff satisfaction data tied directly to patient outcomes — and an AI suggesting which shift policies to change.
That’s the vision.
Six Quick Takeaways about this Acquisition
In summary, it appears to me that this deal can be boiled down to six points.
▪️ With the purchase, Qualtrics is buying permission, not just product. When the transaction is completed, it will not just own Press Ganey and its various products/services. It will also own the trust layer for healthcare AI.
▪️ Silver Lake’s bet on scale is paying off. Private capital lets Qualtrics take swings public investors wouldn’t stomach.
▪️ This deal allows Ares Management and LGP to exit cleanly. They built a regulated-data asset at precisely the moment strategics need one.
▪️ I suspect regulators looking at this acquisition will focus on data handling, not antitrust concerns. HIPAA compliance issues? Potentially, but not market share.
▪️ Competitors just got boxed in. Medallia, Verint, and Sprinklr now need to craft their own vertical moats. Fast.
▪️ Utah wins. At the end of the day, the State of Deseret should gain more high-skill jobs, deeper healthcare ties, and global proof that AI-at-scale can come from Utah, not Silicon Valley.
Bottom line
To me, this is NOT a vanity buy. Rather, it’s a domain moat.
In other words, Qualtrics just turned healthcare experience management into its next growth engine and Utah into one of AI’s most credible proving grounds.
If the integration delivers, this deal won’t read as survey software grows up.
Rather, I suspect it will be seen as AI finally finds its footing in the real world.
Publisher’s Note
This news/analysis was first distributed to Utah Money Watch subscribers on 9 October 2025. To receive future Utah-focused business and financial analysis before it breaks elsewhere, visit www.UtahMoneyWatch.com and hit a Subscribe button.
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